Of the many rappers who followed the aesthetic formula laid out by SpaceGhostPurrp and Raider Klan—lo-fi samples, hotboxed ’90s nostalgia, and an atmosphere that evokes witch house as much as horrorcore—few have built as stable a career as $uicideboy$, the New Orleans-born cousins Ruby da Cherry and $crim. With no radio hits and little in the way of mainstream American press, the duo has amassed a substantial following, to the tune of hundreds of millions of streams and collaborations with Travis Barker and Korn’s Munky. As their status has grown, so has their focus, and their once prolific release schedule has slowed. Their work hinges on a central question: When you’ve defined yourself by a professed desire to die, how do you sustain a thriving career based on your trauma? Long Term Effects of SUFFERING makes it clear that the anguish is no gimmick, but rather part of an almost Zen philosophy: For $uicideboy$, all of life is suffering, and it’s in that suffering that their work finds its meaning.
Ruby and $crim, who are both in their thirties, are older than most of their artistic peers. At the age that Lil Peep or XXXTentacion were dealing with sudden fame, Ruby and $crim were broke and trying to get their shit together, which might be why their music is so effectively cathartic: Though they often rap about celebrity, they have experienced what it’s like to be an adult without any kind of success, not just fighting the demons in your head but struggling, in a very real, material way, to survive.
Ruby spent his teen years playing in punk bands, and both cousins grew up under the influence of the local Cash Money, but they were drawn to different kinds of rap music as they grew older, a binary that’s fairly evident in their music: Ruby stuck to the classics, crediting more lyrically driven artists from Wu-Tang to Souls of Mischief as touchstones, while $crim fell in love with the head-banging hi-hats and gun sounds of Waka Flocka and Chief Keef. Their first mixtapes, adorned with memes like R. Buddy Dwyer’s on-air suicide or Bill Clinton playing the saxophone, feel almost more like the blunted blog rap of Big K.R.I.T. or Jackie Chain, just delivered in a slower drawl, with archetypal boasts about cocaine bumps, hit-and-runs, and hook-ups. Across subsequent releases, the flows sharpened, the production grew more composed, and the subject matter took on a more personal focus. $crim has been particularly vocal about his struggles with opioid addiction and substance abuse, and on Long Term Effects of SUFFERING, the group’s past tapestries of violence have given way to more genuinely felt songs like “Life Is but a Stream~,” which tearfully expresses how the side effects of addiction can drive away the people you love.
$uicideboy$ are more than capable of straight-up buck-wild tracks like “WE ENVY NOTHING IN THE WORLD.,” essentially a disconnected series of nihilistic images of extreme violence. But the duality in their work also allows space for positivity. Pain brings with it the possibility of healing, and on “The Number You Have Dialed Is Not in Service,” they offer wary words of encouragement to the desperate, despite the song’s punchline: When $crim, feeling suicidal, calls his therapist, the only answer is a dead-end intercept message. Suicidal thoughts are a constant presence on Long Term Effects of SUFFERING, and their bars are filled with images of psych wards and alienation. But despite their hardcore reputation and fatalistic lyrics, the pair effortlessly ease into lighter modes: “Smile at my casket/I’m at peace with my death,” croons $crim on “Forget It,” over a syrupy beat of almost Drain Gang-like trance pop.
$uicideboy$ are enthusiastic sample flippers who regularly return to the well of classic Memphis rap for sonic inspiration, but it’s no longer just imitation; they’ve grown confident and skilled enough to break out of the confines of their established sound. There are obvious Southern rap vocal samples across songs like “Degeneration in the Key of a Minor” and “Avalon,” but more left-field flips as well, like the subtle interpolation of the Counts’ “Love Sign” on “Lighting the Flames of My Own Personal Hell.” Over time, their beats have grown from simpler drum patterns stitched to Southern rap samples into more fully realized constructions, as likely to throw in a fluttering jazz sax or subtle xylophone as a trap hi-hat.
More than any of the usual names that get trotted out when discussing SoundCloud rap or emo rap, $uicideboy$ share the most with Lil Ugly Mane, who they’ve been known to sample. Both artists take vintage Southern rap as a kind of foundational pastiche but shape it into a found-sound collage of esoteric and experimental influences, finding a parallel between the violence of Southern rap and the often physically violent form that mental illness can take. When $uicideboy$ most deliberately ape the scary movie sounds of Memphis rap, like on “If Self-Destruction Was an Olympic Event, I’d Be Tanya Harding,” it’s mostly to create a sense of discomfort and unease. On “Materialism as a Means to an End,” the bass ricochets back and forth between the right and left speakers, making for a banger that feels like it’s mid-nervous breakdown.
As with Lil Ugly Mane, and any white artist who borrows so liberally and obviously from Black music, there’s a very real question of appropriation to chew on, especially considering the legal action Three 6 Mafia took against the duo over uncleared samples. But $uicideboy$ aren’t just pilfering rap history: The group has also come under fire for sampling deadmau5 without clearance and regularly flip contemporary artists like Denzel Curry, Lana Del Rey, and even themselves. They frequently sound less like a Southern rap tribute act than a dizzying pastiche of pastiches.
Though their music has often been described as “horrorcore,” they have flatly rejected that label. There are no concept songs from the point of view of Chucky here, no absurd gore, no John Carpenter flips. Three 6 Mafia used the imagery of slashers and demonic possession to express their condition as inhabitants of a society in which they had little to no power over their lives due to racial and economic oppression. $uicideboy$ are similarly unsparing in their reminder that, for many Americans, reality is shaped by violent and destructive forces beyond our control.
Substance abuse and its material causes are the ghosts in the rafters of modern rap, but $uicideboy$ invite them into the blunt rotation, directly confronting the pain that haunts so much of the genre. Detractors have claimed that artists like $uicideboy$, like so many rappers and rock stars before their time, as well as so many of their creative peers, glamorize mental illness and addiction. Every generation tends to believe that history will end, or at least peak, with its passing, but SoundCloud rap—or emo rap, or whatever you want to call it—and its audience belong to an era when our fate seems scientifically sealed. Faced with that grim prognosis, $uicideboy$ ask: What’s wrong with taking a little pleasure in your own demise when it’s all but set in stone?
Buy: Rough Trade
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